Justice Scalia’s death could change Supreme Court position on climate – "nightmare scenario" possible for greens

Justice Antonin Scalia’s death could change the course of history on the contentious social and legal issues pending before the Supreme Court this term, especially in closely divided cases where he was expected to serve as a lynchpin of a conservative majority…

Climate change

Obama’s Clean Power Plan could be in the hands of the D.C. Circuit Court.

One of Scalia’s last official acts as a justice was to deliver a large dent in Obama’s climate legacy, providing one of five votes to stay the Clean Power Plan, which regulates carbon emissions from power plants. The decision could set back implementation of the rule by years. A 4-4 ideological split on the Supreme Court raises the stakes for the more liberal D.C. Circuit’s eventual decision on the Clean Power Plan, though the high court would still have to lift its stay if the rule is upheld…

Greens faced with nightmare scenario at the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court’s decision this week to halt President Obama’s sweeping climate change regulation for power plants is causing environmentalists and experts to wonder whether they need a backup plan.

The Obama administration has repeatedly said, both before and after the judicial stay was ordered, that it does not have a Plan B if the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan gets overturned.

Officials insist that a backup plan isn’t necessary because once the high court hears the case, it will find that the rule is well within the boundaries of the Clean Air Act and the Constitution.

“We remain confident that when this is given its day in court, it’s going to be upheld on the merits,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters.

“Plan A’s a good one, and I don’t want anyone to think it isn’t,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in January.

But the unexpected move by the Supreme Court nonetheless caused a jolt among environmentalists, reminding them that the nine justices at the Supreme Court might interpret the law differently than they do.

“The Supreme Court took unprecedented action, so of course it makes everyone pause and reevaluate,” said John Coequyt, global climate policy director for the Sierra Club.

…

It is the first time the high court has stayed a regulation after a lower court refused to do so, and the first time the justices have issued a stay before any court heard the merits of the case.

Now the EPA cannot enforce any parts of the rule until the litigation is over, a major win for the states and energy interests who argued that, if the rule were allowed to proceed and later be overturned, they would experience irreparable harm.

But since the Clean Power Plan is such a major piece of the administration’s climate policy, its downfall would make it difficult to achieve the emissions cuts needed to slow global warming and to meet the country’s pledge under last year’s Paris climate agreement.

Complicating the matter is the timing. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has to hear the case and rule before the Supreme Court takes it up, putting any decision about the next steps in the hands of the next president.

Additionally, if the Supreme Court rules against the EPA, its decision could be narrow — allowing the agency to try to rewrite the rule — or it could be broad, potentially prohibiting any future greenhouse gas regulations for power plants.

Environmentalists were generally tight-lipped about what a Plan B might look like, instead repeating their confidence that the rule will stand.

338 thoughts on “Justice Scalia’s death could change Supreme Court position on climate – "nightmare scenario" possible for greens”

Obama may try to pull out all the stops in the little time remaining to him and trigger active rebellion, even impeachment. If Sanders becomes the next president, who knows? He is a cipher, a null, a creature of the unions. Trying to form a cult of personality around Sanders is like trying to divide by zero.

No doubt Obama will not wait for the funeral but will start his 10 month campaign to replace Scalia with what he’ll call a conservative-moderate by the name of Eric Holder (just kidding, but you get the drift). You can game out several scenarios but this has dramatically changed the 2016 Presidential race. For example, race will become a huge issue since Obama will nominate a minority SCOTUS appointee (I’m guessing a person of color) and amplified by the media. It’s hard to see how any nominee Obama makes will win 51 votes in the Senate, except post-election (always a dangerous time for conservatives).
What will be interesting is whether the Democrat Presidential candidate will try to capture huge percentages of minority voters by promising to appoint Obama to SCOTUS.
Oh, and actually, the Greens have no need to panic yet. However, if Kennedy, Ginsberg and/or Brayer die and a person like Cruz is President-Elect you’ll hear lobbying about “balance”, etc..
Interesting times indeed.

“One of Scalia’s last official acts as a justice was to deliver a large dent in Obama’s climate legacy, providing one of five votes to stay the Clean Power Plan, which regulates carbon emissions from power plants.”
Thank you Judge Scalia. Rest In Peace.

Skin doesn’t matter until someone is chosen ostensibly for his skin color, then it matters a lot.
There is a reasonable expectation that such person wouldn’t be neutral on many issues such as anti-discrimination laws, pro-minority programs, “real” equality programs, etc.

Dear Jeff Alberts,
Well… since you do not believe in a Designer, I guess they would have to be in your worldview. In your worldview, you are just a coincidence.
In my view, you are God’s precious creation, a treasure. God will never make another “you.” You weren’t put on this earth by chance. And I didn’t “just happen” to write this, either.
Take care,
Janice
P.S. Still praying…. over 2 years later… and I’ll keep right on praying for you.

This seems odd, as Sanders is the opposite of a cipher. His intellectual ideology and behavior are incredibly well-known, as long as you don’t depend on the NYT and CNN for news. Try the historical archives of Vermont news sources for a start. The man’s a 60s campus radical who never grew out of the phase.

Janice,
Does Jeff want you to pray for him to your the demonic designer of your delusions? If so, great.
I certainly wouldn’t want you offering up incantations to the disgusting, evil, sadistic trickster spirit of your anti-human death cult on my behalf.

Dear John (a.k.a….. lots of names, heh),
I am praying for Jeff ab initio. And I will pray even if he requests me to stop. Just as I have been praying for you for over 2 years, now. Oh, now, smirk all you like — in the end, I think I just WILL see you in heaven!
With agape (most of the time — just the way it is, not perfect, just forgiven),
Janice

Janice, while I’d normally be behind you in your prayers for others, I have to say that at times like this it seems you are less praying FOR someone then praying AT them. I think perhaps it is time to consider why you feel it necessary to remind the unbelievers of your prayers at every opportunity.
Are you bringing others closer to Him, or pushing them further away? Just a thought.

Anything signed by Obama at the Paris meeting has to be approved by the US Senate.
Obama says he doesn’t need the Senate’s approval; that he has the authority under the Clean Air Act and the United Nations Framework on Climate Change signed by former President George H.W. Bush to commit; that any deal/pact/agreement/treaty he signed onto at the conference isn’t a treaty because it’s not legally binding, even though it may legally bind the U.S. to a “process”.http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2015/09/obamas-plan-to-avoid-senate-review-of-the-paris-protocol
This predetermined, pre-calculated “process” is a carbon “tax” by the UN based on the amount of carbon/CO2 a nation “produces”. The money from this tax will be used by the UN to finance a base for their world socialist bureaucracy. Signatories would not be bound to reduce CO2/greenhouse gases, however. Nations that signed onto a Paris agreement are obligated to pay the “tax” as part of the UN’s “process” toward a specific “outcome” (reduction of CO2); meaning it really doesn’t matter to the UN if a nation misses its “outcome” (of reducing CO2) as long as they remain a part of the “process” and pay their UN taxes.http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/23/people-starting-to-ask-about-motive-for-massive-ipcc-deception/
Paris was never about climate change. Climate change was a cover for starting a tax revenue stream from nations for the UN.
Thirty Republican senators introduced a sense-of-the-Senate resolution in November 2015 that said, essentially, anything signed at the Paris Climate Change Conference had to be submitted to the senate for advice and consent. Absent that, they will not budget money for the U.N.’s fund to “. . . fight climate change.”https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-resolution/290/text
Prior to that, S. Res. 98 ( a no-obligation resolution) was introduced and passed 95-0 by the US Senate June 1997.https://www.congress.gov/bill/105th-congress/senate-resolution/98
Should Obama attempt to force the U.S. to pay what the UN calculates the nation “owes” for its carbon/CO2 production, and force the shutdown of coal powered plants (the cheapest, most efficient way known to generate energy) then these issues probably will have to be decided by SCOTUS.
This, coupled with the EPA’s current attempt to take control of all waters and land within the US [the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) case] that’s now before the Supreme Court, are major constitutional issues for the nation, and for which Justice Scalia’s opinions were—and would have been—critical.http://canadafreepress.com/article/using-the-kings-star-chamber-to-smackdown-private-property-rights
He will be missed.
Rest in peace, Antonin Scalia.

“””””…..
simple-touriste
February 14, 2016 at 10:28 am
Skin doesn’t matter until someone is chosen ostensibly for his skin color, then it matters a lot. …..”””””
Let me guess; you have been in a coma since Nov 2008, and have just awakened.
Glad you made it back; but look what happened while you were asleep. It even happened twice; well to be a part of history, you understand.
G

I think the world is headed for financial Armageddon-then war in the next couple of years and we’ll look back and wonder why we thought all this other stuff was important at all.
Our kids will be lucky if their future doesn’t involve standing around a burn barrel to keep warm.

Well you can forget about ” survival ” as a free country.
Supreme court justices do not have to be lawyers. The President can appoint anyone, and he probably will.
He could in fact appoint a Mohemmedan Imam to be a justice of the supreme court; someone who believes in a system of law, that is completely incompatible with the USA Constitution; i.e. sharia law.
When I legally immigrated to the USA, I (voluntarily) signed a paper, which included a question that asked me to swear, that I would promise to abide by and defend the Constitution of the USA, and its laws.
So far as I know, nobody has been legally immigrated into the USA, who ever answered NO to that question.
Lying to the Feds on legal documents such as I signed constitutes grounds for deportation.
So I assume that all legal USA immigrants, either intend to accept and abide by and defend the laws and Constitution, or they brazenly lied on that question, and their real intent or interest is to overthrow the US Constitution as the basis for our laws.
Right now we have an open discussion relating to the election, where some candidates are being roundly criticized for daring to suggest that persons openly supporting the replacement of the US Constitution by their own incompatible system of law; should not be allowed to immigrate to the USA.
And a vocal opposition is replying to this, saying ” that’s not who we are. ”
So spokespersons for one of the two major political parties in the USA, are publicly declaring that we should bring the Trojan horse into our nation and just accept what come inside it. And what’s inside is schooled in the belief that it is approved to lie, cheat and steal to advance their agenda; even demanded of their followers.
And the Current President, has already demonstrated by his actions that he is fully capable of adhering to that teaching.
So those of you who couldn’t come up with a better reason or criterion for casting your vote, in 2008 and again in 2012 (for good measure) just to be ” a part of history “, well now you have your place in history, and your children and grandchildren, will remember what you did.
The Republican majorities in both houses of Congress have already demonstrated, that neither one of those bodies has the cajones to do what they were elected to do in the last two elections, and both bodies will just sit around and watch it happen. The House already folded on the use of their funding power; and the Senate will fold on their use of the advise and consent role that they were entrusted with.
I actually used to sing ” God save the Queen. ” Perhaps we should be singing ” God save America. ”
G

“””””….. Mike
February 14, 2016 at 7:48 am ….”””””
Well Mike, unfortunately all that happened was a stay, not a rejection; the case was not even heard.
So when it comes up (this year) if it ends up a 4-4 tie (it will), then the lower court ruling will stand. And the case went to SCOTUS because the lower court ruled for the EPA.
So it’s already as good as done.
G

“””””…..
simple-touriste
February 15, 2016 at 1:53 pm
“Glad you made it back; but look what happened while you were asleep.”
So, what happened? …..”””””
Try …. g o o g l e . c o m …. for a whole encyclopedia full of things.
g
PS on another matter French Language related.
Quite often in English, when a word is misspelled, the result is another word with an entirely different meaning. So ” deer ” becomes ” dear ” or ” Deere ” etc.
So you told us that a certain French word which I think might have started with an E was supposed to have some sort of French specific accent mark above it (could have been an e).
And you asserted for our instruction, that the lack of the accent was a spelling mistake.
So I ask, did the lack of the accent make it into a different real French word, or did it become garbage.
It would seem to me, that if the presence or absence of the accent mark, makes two different words, then it is important. But if the absence simply creates garbage, it begs the question: why not just omit it for simplicity and assume people will pronounce it properly.
Incidently such marks as accents or umlauts etc. tell me exactly NOTHING at all about how to pronounce the word. Somebody has to speak it for me.
Well I digress.

Presumably they take every bit of wisdom that they have accumulated in life with them. If you wish to call that prejudice, well, that’s your opinion. Some of them may rely on emotion rather than logic, the letter of the law, and accumulated life experience, but that is why there are nine of them, why there are legal arguments involved, and so forth. I am not happy about some decisions they hand down, but I think they get things right about 90% of the time. Now, for a real amateur hour have a look at some lower-level federal judges–quite a few of them do not even understand what the letter of the law says when they make decisions. There are Federal judges who are no better than political hacks, but even here the court very often works things out right after appeals and wrangling. My biggest criticism is the expense and delay of justice.

Agendas do not have any place in truly fair Courts of law under the U.S. Constitution. Judges making laws (imposing laws) by judicial decisions / decrees is in opposition to every moral and ethical aspect of the U.S. Constitution and to do so is almost, if not, a treasonous act and should be challenged in every way, at any opportunity. Any Court or Judge who does so certainly does not deserve their title and has certainly wasted his/her career and education in the law by not maintaining their integrity and oath to the Constitution. They simply become political hacks who should be remembered in history books as such.

America was a united country during WWII and 9_11. Comparatively divided in between and after. Do others see it differently ?
Perhaps unity is not the norm. Do our differences make us stronger ? Did the pursuit of science do better while we’re united or divided ? Is their any correlation ?
Wondering out loud.

More conservatives live in mixed communities. Its the loonie Liberal Lefties who send their kids to white only schools and socialize among themselves. If seen this happen in so many big cities around the country where so called social Liberals move in and gentrify an area, leaving the poor black and other minorities no place affordable to live or send their kids to school.

Absolutely they do. How else do you explain 5-4 decisions on something that is as simple as a mere question of Constitutionality. Even 4-H clubbers can tell you what the US Constitution says; it’s written in plain English, instead of mediaeval Roman mumbo jumbo.
G

Vote against Obama and less than a month later he’s in charge of picking out your replacement.
But don’t worry, Lew Boy will be along shortly to reassure us that any concerns we might have that this all seems mighty convenient are just ‘Conspiracy Ideation’. In fact, I’ll bet he’ll already have a paper about it ready to go.
<¿<

Menicholas February 14, 2016 at 11:31 amScalia has been ruling from a strictly textual and originalist point of view for the past 29 years.
I seem to recall that an Amendment was required for Alcohol Prohibition.Raich

Timing of death……
“Just another conspir*cy nut” or at least that’s always the sure way to put someone down even when there’s evidence otherwise. Another is a favorite of say the FBI and similar, raid a house & then say oh we were looking for child p*rn on his computer; instant public belief and the “law” has rid itself of one more dissident.

A new nominee would have to be approved by Congress, but that is little solace. I am not confident in this congress to do anything other than rubber-stamp whatever is put in front of them so that they won’t be called mean names by the prog media.

M, won’t happen. Dem. Senate successfully used proforma sessions to block Bush1 from making recess appointments. Obama tried 4 (remember stacking the NLRB? in 2012) in the 3 days between pro forma Senate sessions. SCOTUS ruled the 3 days was not what the constitution meant by a recess. I just looked this up to be sure. So Republicans can use the Dem developed pro formas tactic to block an Obama recess appointment to SCOTUS.

The Supreme Court ruled that the constitution gave the Senate the responsibility for setting it’s own rules.
Therefore if the Senate says it’s in recess, it is. The president doesn’t have the authority to decide for himself when the Senate is recess.

@ Tom Judd — Hi! Saw your Elkhart, WI comment to me, but it had been too long to expect you’d see my reply to you. Lol, yes, of COURSE I would comment on a thread about cars. You take care, too.
And, Happy Valentine’s Day.
Janice

Tom Judd — I think you have good cause to be optimistic. Despite McC’s RINO species tendencies, I think there are still some good elephant {FYI for non-U.S. readers: = mascot of Republicans) genes in him… .

This is a very dangerous time. Just think about the comments made here. Nothing remotely like them would have been written only a few years ago. It’s not funny at all. If this goes really wrong, with judicial usurpation of constitutional rights, a lot of people will probably die. It isn’t some academic debate where there are no consequences. I’m not sure we are in a stable system anymore. It’s amazing the importance of one or a few men. And you don’t realize it until they are gone.

“You are about to log in to the site “gmail.com” with the username “dentalmanagerdmd”, but the website does not require authentication. This may be an attempt to trick you.”
another@sockpuppet
[???? Bet it will be like pulling teeth to get to the root of this hole. .mod]

Are we perhaps forgetting that Obama is an unusual political beast in that he (in my estimation) has a conscience which is incorruptible. We may disagree with much of what he does and says – but, by and large, he will do what he believes is right. I think he will sincerely try to appoint an “honest” judge (not just a “clever and ambitious” one) who is right for the job – not just go for somebody who can be expected to be “anti-republican”. Remember Obama is a lawyer. Am I being naive??

“Are we perhaps forgetting that Obama is an unusual political beast in that he (in my estimation) has a conscience which is incorruptible.”
I do not wish to show disrespect, sir. But your comment is utter nonsense. Do you know nothing of Chicago politics? Obama was born in Hawaii; was educated on both the East and West Coasts; yet he came to Chicago to start his career in politics? Why? And, his initial start was as a Community Organizer: A position that had its roots in Sal Alinsky (author of, ‘Rules for Radicals’). Obama obtained his home in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood through the machinations of Tony Rezko who’s now in prison. Obama slid uncontested (he wasn’t elected) into his Illinois State Senate seat by taking its former occupant, and mentor, Alice Palmer, to court on voter fraud. Once there he gerrymandered the district. From the State Senate seat he slid (also, essentially uncontested) into the Senate in Washington. He has essentially brought Chicago ‘machine style politics’ onto the national stage.

AndyE
you wrote: “Obama is an unusual political beast in that he (in my estimation) has a conscience which is incorruptible”
Opinion which is baseless. Obama is in fact a rigid follower of Saul Alinsky and in fact taught his ideology and has stated many times that he was most proud of being a “community activist” which is a direct hat tip to Alinsky. For those who do not know, rule number 5 in Alinsky’s playbook is “ridicule is man’s most potent weapon”. Sound like our president? Does it sound like a manifestation of “a conscience which is incorruptible”?
AndyE, wake up before your dream becomes a nightmare for yourself and us all.

Yes, you are being naive. Very naive .Obama is a self-serving sociopath who has shown no evidence of conscience when it comes to killing innocent civilians overseas and possibly at home in order to promote the Imperial agenda. Any nomination he makes to the bench will be pushed on fringe issues but will be totally pro-fascism.

Welcome to Earth! You have a little catching up to do. Seriously, I don’t know where to start, describing a man whose first political job was, roughly speaking, community blackmail, and who got his senate seat by obtaining the release of ugly divorce records of an opponent as “incorruptible” of conscience smacks of an awfully recent arrival. Also, you can keep your insurance and this will save you money.

dentalmanagerdmd@gmail.com
says:
February 14, 2016 at 11:14 am
“Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School.”
In all due respect, that’s not fully true. Obama was a Lecturer at U of C from 1992 to 1996, and a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004. Senior Lecturer is the formal title although U of C says (with full knowledge of what side their bread is buttered on) claims that is no different than a ‘Professor’ title. Many colleges do, however, distinguish the two. And, Obama was definitely not on track to be tenured. His load was an astonishingly light 3 courses per year. That probably had much to do with his political position (unelected) as senator in Illinois state capital in Springfield.
As an aside, Michelle Obama held the position of VP of Community Relations at U of C Hospital. It paid a mere $317,000 per year. Oh, and when she left the position once Barack and her moved to the WH the position was eliminated.

dentalmanager,
You are waaay off track. Your inaccurately premised challenge to sciguywas (then, doubled down on with other WUWT commenters):

Could you please tell me how Alinsky’s ideology is taught in a class of constitutional law?

The answer to that is: Barry Soetoro never taught a class in Con-law. He only lectured about tangential matters (among which, IIRC, was “community organizing”).
The logical assumption, regardless of the title of the Con-law related course, is that Barry Soetoro shared his Alinsky-inspired “community organizing” thoughts in his brief stint as a “Lecturer” at the law school. Sciguy has presented enough (and there is more than enough common knowledge from the 2008 presidential campaign time to back him up) evidence to make a prima facie case, thus shifting the burden of proof (and production) to you.
Let’s hear you prove Mr. Soetoro, a.k.a., Barack Hussein Obama, did NOT share his Alinsky-inspired community organizing ideas in his lectures at the law school.
Why are you bothering to defend lame duck Obama anyway? (no, I really do not care why)
Janice

Mental,
How many times do you need to be shown incontrovertible, visual evidence of the fact that Obama taught Alinsky’s principles in his lectures at the U of C LS before reality dawns over your benighted horizon?http://conservativepost.com/chicago-law-professor-just-demolished-obama-he-is-lazy-unqualified-and/
The highest tenured faculty member at Chicago Law spoke out on Barack Obama saying, “Professors hated him because he was lazy, unqualified, never attended any of the faculty meetings.”
Doug Ross reported this and more:
I spent some time with the highest tenured faculty member at Chicago Law a few months back, and he did not have many nice things to say about “Barry.”
The other professors hated him because he was lazy, unqualified, never attended any of the faculty meetings, and it was clear that the position was nothing more than a political stepping stool.
According to my professor friend, he had the lowest intellectual capacity in the building. He also doubted whether he was legitimately an editor on the Harvard Law Review, because if he was, he would be the first and only editor of an Ivy League law review to never be published while in school (publication is or was a requirement).
obama-alinsky
This photo of Barack Obama teaching in Chicago was posted in February 2008 at PrestoPundit. In this class Barack Obama was teaching his students the principles of Saul Alinsky.

Here’s a community organizing site which spouts the same Alinskyite garbage about “power analysis” and “building relationships on self-interest” parroted by Obama, as shown above:http://tenant.net/Organize/orgdyn.html

Mental,
What makes you imagine that the course description would include a mention of Alinsky by name?
The visual evidence is right there before your eyes. That’s not an assertion, but a fact.
Welcome to reality, grasshopper.

I wish all of you would point out to whom you are responding by adding their names and dates. And also, as others have said, WUWT seens to have gone from a science open site to more and more a ” He said She said” political site. If you want to make political statements there are lots of other sites available , ( Please pray for that Janice, I am).

Tobias.
Come on…get real.
This is a discussion attached to a posting about a political issue.
Hence the discussion has gravitated towards the political.
Most science articles have discussions which center on the science.
If you see different, you must be reading a different set of discussions than me.
And in any case, in case you have not noticed, the issues of climate change and AGW have become more political than scientific. And this trend was not started here.

Mental,
Can you really be so thick as not to realize that the Tenant site specifically mentions Alinsky’s power analysis, same as Obama wrote on the blackboard.
You’re either too dense for this discussion or a shameless troll.
So, buh-bye.

A lawyer that never had a real practice and had to resort to teaching and then politics to stay relevant. There’s those who teach and then there’s those who actually apply their knowledge to change things for the better ! Obama’s time would have been better spent changing the arcane practice of Life Time Appointments to positions of such overwhelming control, only kings and dictators are lucky enough to rule under those conditions !

A “conscience which is incorruptible”? I can think of no more corrupt administration in my lifetime. If you are really being honest when you ask if you are naive, I would have to reply with the word hoplessly.

If Obama taught Constitutional Law at U of C, then howcum he told Professor John Lott; an economist, that ” Nobody has a right to own a gun. ” ??
It’s right there in the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights in the Constitution tells the government they aren’t allowed to mess around with that right. (even on the fringes, like limits on ammo).
G

Notanist February 14, 2016 at 3:47 am
“A new nominee would have to be approved by Congress,”
———————————————————————————————————————————
No, the nominee must have the consent of the Senate to be appointed.
Article II, Section 2. (pertaining to the powers of the POTUS) ” and shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint …..Judges of the Supreme Court…”.
If you are not a U. S. citizen your misunderstanding is OK, if you are a U.S. citizen I hope you don’t vote.

>”…must have the consent of the Senate…”
Yes, I meant Senate, thanks for the sorely needed correction. And I’m from the country of Texas but I live in South Florida. 🙂 Over my life I’ve voted both sides and finally learned the truth of the saying, “Nothing sours you on politics faster than supporting the winning candidate.” Now I’m a rightish-leaning Libertarian and do not see anybody on the slate that I trust do anything but what the current crop of Rs are doing, so to answer your last question, no I do not intend to vote.

As a rightish leaning Libertarian myself I urge you to vote. You may not like the candidates but you surely must realize that there is nothing a liberal Democrat has to offer except more government and higher and higher taxes to pay for their social programs. Not voting for whoever is the Republican candidate turns out to be the same as if you are voting for the Democrat. Look at it this way, we cannot go from far left to far right in one election. We need to get back to the middle first, allow people to see that is a better path than anything a Democratic has to offer then move more to the right after that.

Don’t imagine that there is anything unusual about my stance. Trump and Sanders are at the top of their respective classes, people who mostly got protest votes in past elections, and they got to the top because protest voters have become the majority.
There are two ways to protest an election. One way is to vote for one of two Statist control freaks who wear their personality disorders with pride. The other is to sit it out and watch from the sidelines. I suspect this election will have lots of both.

“So judges take their personal prejudices into the court room…”
Of course they do. Listening to the arguments, I sometimes wonder why they even go through the charade, it’s just another legislating body with 9 members set for life… their attempts to “interpret” the constitution provide but a thin veneer for their own deeply held political leanings to the point it should be a joke to the most casual observer. Just drop the legal maneuvering and vote by a raise of hands on what you prefer. Those who prefer action on climate change or not will almost invariably read action on climate change between the lines of the constitution. Those who favor (or don’t) abortion or gun rights or gay marriage will do the same thing. I’m sure your own opinion of which justices are the most egregious offenders largely depends upon your own political leanings.
What is telling to me is the lack of constitutional amendments or rumblings thereof in recent history. It tells me we have abandoned any strict interpretation (which would occasionally require amendment if what we desired ran afoul or was outside the scope of the document) in favor of just pretending it says whatever we want. The court is an absolute joke.

No. The Florida Supreme Court were the clowns who threw out the states election laws and decided they knew better than the legislature on how to determine a “fair” election. Anyone running for office signs a contract with the State acknowledging the election process. Gore didn’t like the outcome and filed the case in Leon county Florida.
Judge Saul ruled rightfully that the State performed under the contract and that the results were certified consistently with the defined election procedures. The Florida Supreme Court overturned Saul’s ruling with complete disregard for the existing election laws. If SCOTUS hadn’t stepped in, every contract in Florida was potentially at risk to being “litigated” under the Florida Court’s vague concept of “fairness”.
Gore was the most glaring example of Democrat’s complete disdain for the rule of law. In the 3rd floor of the Broward County courthouse and up in Palm Beach, votes were being cast not counted.

Not only that, Florida was in danger of not certifying the vote within the legal time limits to have the electoral votes count. Without Florida’s votes, Gore would have been President. That was their intent which they could then blame on the Republican Secretary of State of Florida, Katherine Harris, whose job it was to certify the vote in time to be counted in the national election. When Harris demanded the certified vote of the Counties in question be sent to the State Capital within the legal time limits, the Florida Supreme Court tried to change the law by extending that time limit.

Actually it was the DNC (Democrat National Committee) attorneys who decided we didn’t need to count votes in Presidential elections — or at least not the wrong kind of votes (mail-in ballots from US military service members posted abroad). The same Florida Supreme Court (5 justices, all appointed by Democrat governors) which ruled the election laws requiring count and certification to be completed in a certain time could be set aside in the interest of “counting all the votes” also ruled that the requirement absentee ballots had to be “postmarked” no later than a certain date must be strictly applied and therefore all ballots originating at military bases could be thrown out because such mail is never “postmarked”.
The legal farce in Florida following the 2000 election really is one for the history books. My personal favorite irony was Chicago mayor Richard M. Daily came down to help make sure “all the votes were counted”. R. M. Daily was the son of former Chicago mayor Richard J. Daily — also known as “Boss” and the reason the motto of the Chicago Democrat party is “vote early and often”.

Like most who have suffered modern media and education, you get it exactly backwards. There is a reason the case is called “Gore V. Florida” and not “Bush V. Florida.” But sources like NYT, MSNBC, and CNN still report the opposite of what actually happened.
Lies are killing us all, slowly.

No you have it wrong. All the Supremes said was if you are going to have a recount, you had to recount ALL of the votes cast in the election. The re-counters only wanted to recount those ballots where the voter had decided to vote for nobody, by punching out two holes in hiserits ballot, instead of one for hiserits candidate of choice. There were over six million votes cast, and they only wanted to recount a few thousand that were “non of the above” votes.
Also the State of Florida election law said in the case of a recount, they had to appoint as many recount teams consisting of members from all parties to complete the recount within the appointed time. It would have taken 10,000 recount teams to recount the six million ballots in the available time, because they were taking as much as 15 minutes per ballot to determine if there was only one chad punched out or two or more.
it would be nice if people read what actually did happen, instead of spouting out what some Hollywood elites or media dopes claimed is what happened.
They just never got enough people together to complete the recount before the secretary of State, had to certify the State result.
G

If I am reading you correctly, you would prefer that we go through the constitutional but messy business of actually amending the constitution rather than relying on the political leanings of 9 Judges. I would agree. This has the benefit that if you were wrong, you can change it back. The classic example is Prohibition. A sound Amendment should pass. A bad amendment can also be overturned. A bad Supreme Court ruling needs exactly the right case to get it overturned, and it might be decades before the right case comes along, with the right judges in place. That is not democracy. Amending the constitution is. All of those who say the constitution is old and out of date need to understand that it was created as a living document.

I notice people try hard to rewrite history. I actually went to the Senate BEFORE the Supreme Court ruled about all this…and I discussed the need to pass the Uniform Voting Act which I wrote up for them. They all said, DNC AND GOP they would do this.
Instead we continue to have all sorts of voting systems and counting systems that DO NOT WORK very well. Every election after that one, we are on an edge of a knife. And Kerry gave up to Bush due to them both being Skull and Bones brothers. We all had zero say in all this.
This is from a political insider. I grew up near the seat of power (ask Goldwater, my former next door neighbor!).

Interpret, means to replace words with other words. And other words have other meaning.
Well the US Constitution is written in plain English. No it is not the English that a yuppie would write with one of his finger toys, while waiting for the red light to turn green; but it is fully understandable by any 4-H clubber, who knows which end of a calf or lamb to place the food at.
I would rather have supreme court justices who just used the words that the Constitution uses, in reaching Hiserits decision.
Simple words like: ” The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. ” You know; the same people who are referred to as: “We the people ” ; those ” people ” who also have a right to peaceably assemble to petition their government for redress of grievances. ”
Those ” people ” who retain all of their rights that are not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, under the wording of Article nine of the Bill of Rights; but are fully covered in the Declaration of Independence, as being among those they are endowed with (by God, or birth, whatever one prefers).
It matters not a jot, what the heck a militia is or even what a well regulated one is; English grammar rules do not cause any of that to modify, amend, limit, what the wording I cited above as an example of simple words, says. That is nothing more than one example of one reason why the framers thought it was a good ide to not limit a person’s ability to have the means of simple self preservation.
Don’t need any interpretive justices.
G

I wonder if Obama killed Scalia himself or was able to find a government employee capable of doing the deed. This kind of puts Watergate in perspective – a 5-4 SCOTUS stay of a presidential flagship ideology driven project (AGW) and a few says later the 5 becomes 4. Quelle surprise!

What does “deal with it” mean? Civil war? Article V Convention of States? Keep trying to vote in the “right” guys? Wear a smile while you roll over and let them take away your freedom? Void for vagueness.

If you said “oppose it” rather than “deal with it”, I’d agree.
The only result of “deal with it” is subjugation, subjugation to those who hold the golden (or dry-ice ) scepter.
I’m not ready to bend over yet.

1. President Barack Obama, former editor of the Harvard Law Review, is no longer a “lawyer”. He surrendered his license back in 2008 in order to escape charges he lied on his bar application. A “Voluntary Surrender” is not something where you decide “Gee, a license is not really something I need anymore, is it?” and forget to renew your license. No, a “Voluntary Surrender” is something you do when you’ve been accused of something, and you ‘voluntarily surrender” your license five seconds before the state suspends you.

One doesn’t need to be a practicing lawyer to be a judge. One doesn’t even need to have attended law school, actually. (in practice, I doubt that person could confirmed, but that’s another issue.)http://abovethelaw.com/2010/05/you-dont-need-no-stinkin-law-degree-to-be-on-the-supreme-court/
“The Constitution does not specify any particular professional or educational requirements for serving as a justice of the high court. In fact, unlike presidents or members of Congress, Supreme Court justices do not even need to be over a certain age. In 1811, the brilliant Joseph Story was appointed to the court at the tender age of 32 — a veritable legal Doogie Howser.
…
The last justice sans law degree to join the Court was Robert H. Jackson, who attended Albany Law School for just one year. Nominated 1941, retired 1954.”

Actually there have been rumors floated that Obama would like to be appointed to the Court. This presents an interesting conundrum. If he appoints someone now will there be another opening next time a Democrat is in the White House, or should he try to save this opening for himself? Does he deal with Hillary and supports her for president if she will agree to appoint him when elected? If so, iIs he egotistical enough to think that his support guarantees her election? Does he appoint a left wing liberal judge now knowing the Senate will refuse to approve? Ah…. so many choices,.. I’s love to hear the conversations around the dinner table for the next several days/weeks. I can also see Valerie, Michelle and him losing.a good bit of sleep over this one.

Can someone explain to a non-US person how this is a nightmare scenario?
The way I understand it, the POTUS gets to appoint Supreme Court judges. So if a judge retires or dies, a new one of the “correct” political leaning gets appointed.
So where is the nightmare scenario in this?

It depends on your own point of view. The mood is quite celebratory in progressive democrat circles. People understand how powerful these lifetime appointments are. The supreme court does more legislating than the legislature and are unaccountable to voters and an appointment can last 30 years or more. Whether it’s segregation, gay marriage, abortion, etc., etc. most of the day’s modern issues are dictated by the 9 member court rather than the people’s elected representatives. That’s why it’s seen as such a critical position.

The “nightmare” for the socialists/totalitarians/leftists (aka Democrats, aka progressives, aka non-classical liberals) is that the case goes back to the lower court and unless they move at warp speed, it doesn’t get back to the supreme court until a different President is in office and that President, if not of their persuasion, can rescind the EPA regulations.

@ Menicholas, 8.05 am, Can you (or anyone for that matter) explain why the EPA can make these so called laws without going through both Houses? These far reaching life altering decisions should as far as I am concerned not be in the hands of non elected faceless bureaucrats. ( although the elected ones don’t seem to do a much better job and I know I lamented about this becoming a political site but this one conversation is after all weather related.)

The court was balanced between conservative and liberal justices, with one guy who vote either way.
Replacing a conservative with a liberal tilts the court all the way to the left.
That is a nightmare to sane people.

Why does the justice’s persuasion have any effect. All they are doing is deciding whether the item under dispute is Constitutional or not. And anyone fluent in English can tell that. And ALL U S citizens; well at least naturalized ones, have to be fluent in English.
And the members of the Congress and administration demonstrates that American voters are generally not sane; or we wouldn’t be in this fix.
G

Yeah, not seeing it… at best, you have a drop in replacement for Scalia… ie. no change. At worst, you have someone who believes in big government power sympathetic to green ideals. That’d be a happy day for them.
If a replacement is nominated by Obama and confirmed, more likely to be the latter. If a replacement is nominated by the next president and confirmed, it could be anywhere on the spectrum. Basically, having a hard time seeing how this is anything but good news for greens. Seems like a basically click-baity article designed to get people toread it to figure out what they could be missing.

The Court’s “Position”? The court doesn’t have a “Position”, per se. Their role is to interpret the legal validity and constitutionality of a case relative to the the Constitution, hence their position is *always* supposed to be “neutral”. They’re not supposed to have a “position”.
Regarding the passing of Scalia, oh well (shoulders shrugged); I’m tempted to say that “it sucks to be him” but will refrain. Being the alleged “Conservative” Catholic that he was, maybe he should have been in attendance at Pope Francis’ September address to the joint session of Congress – things may have boded a little bit better for him about now, if you believe in such things. Oh, yes, and President Obama now gets to appoint a new Supreme Court Justice.
The recent NY Times article on this development was quite telling: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/10/us/politics/supreme-court-blocks-obama-epa-coal-emissions-regulations.html?_r=0 .
A key aspect of the case regards emissions from “Coal-fired” power plants as opposed to say, NG or oil-fired power plants.
Regarding the issue at hand and according to the Times article, the case was brought by the AG of West Virginia. No surprise there, as that state’s major export is COAL. If you want to find the rat, follow the money trail, its that simple and in this case that trail leads right to the doorstep of West Virginia’s AG – it couldn’t get more political than this!
Anyway, it will be interesting to see where this goes. That the court acted before review by a lower court is unprecedented. A case really doesn’t get to the SCOTUS if it isn’t contentious, so there must have been quite the heated discussions in the various justices’ chambers. Cases like Roe or Citizens United, to name two, were really contentious but never did the court act *before* a lower court did, something that raises serious questions of legality and, I would suggest, demonstrates the court’s willingness to impose a specific ideology on the nation and the world by its former conservative majority (this would be Scalia’s style). This isn’t their role! They are now acting in a legislative capacity with, I might add, a vengeance!
The only question before the court would be did the president’s actions in Paris run afoul of the Constitution, not so much substantively but with regard to his following of legal protocol and I don’t think it did. The president acted within the scope of his legal authority to speak for this country at the Paris Climate summit and commit us to a specific timetable and this has nothing to do with whether *you agree* with the substance of his actions. As the chief executive of the nation and its commander-in-chief, he has limited legal authority to speak on behalf of the nation in such venues. What SCOTUS did is a clear case of ideological imposition by a conservative court via Antonin Scalia, the loudest (and most obnoxious) conservative voice on the court. Seriously, reading one of his decisions was like a chapter out of the Twilight Zone.
I, for one, wish him well (again, if you believe in such things as he did) but won’t miss him and look forward to a new, fresh voice of reason on the court.

“Cases like Roe or Citizens United, to name two, were really contentious but never did the court act *before* a lower court did, something that raises serious questions of legality and, I would suggest, demonstrates the court’s willingness to impose a specific ideology on the nation and the …”
Exactly who’s ideology are you talking about here, sir? The SCOTUS caught on to the EPA scam and put a stop to it. What the EPA was doing (and they even bragged about it themselves) was to set a deliberately short deadline for compliance with a questionable regulation of their’s. Whether the reg stood the test of legality was therefore irrelevant. How the court would decide on the reg would not be known far enough in advance of the reg’s deadline. So, regardless of how the court ultimately ruled the utility would comply with the EPA’s reg anyway, otherwise they simply would not have had enough time without knowning the outcome in advance.
The SCOTUS simply said “enough” to this nonsense.
Get off your high horse.

“The SCOTUS simply said “enough” to this nonsense” is outside the scope of their authority. Legislation is the unique and specific purview of congress in their role as legislators, to enact law, not the Supreme Court whose role is to *interpret* law with respect to the Constitution, a very specific -and limited- role and one that they frequently step outside of such as in this case. Up until the passing of Justice Scalia, never did we have such an activist conservative court (Citizens United was his brain child and has been a disaster).
And what “high horse” am I on, really?

TM, study more before commenting. SCOTUS overturned EPAs new mercury regs on ground it had not followed the laws requisite process. EPA PRed thatnthis did not matter, since rhenutilityes had been forced to comply during the litigation, so the reg had accomplished its mission despite being unlawful. Rather in your face, no.
Roberts coild have issued or denied the CPP himself. He cleverly took it to the full court, since unprecedented. To get the stay, the states had to show two things. Irreparable harm otherwise. Easy in light of the mercury boast. Second, a high probability of prevailing on the merits (CPP is unconstitutional). Easy in light of Larry Tribe’s brief on their behalf. Google Tribe if you do not understand how potent that is.

Tom Judd February 14, 2016 at 5:33 am
Sounds spot on to me. SCOTUS (majority) determined that on the balance of probabilities EPA would lose the case in SCOTUS if it got there and, therefore, they had a constitutional obligation to prevent the implementation of a rule that might be unconstitutional. Can’t see anything wrong with that. EPA could have allowed enough time for the legalities to be sorted. They chose not to and now carry the consequences.

“Legislation is the unique and specific purview of congress in their role as legislators, to enact law, not the Supreme Court whose role is to *interpret* law with …”
Do you genuinely understand what you’ve written? Didn’t the congress already speak to this legislation? Last time I checked both the then Democrat controlled House and Senate voted down Obama’s carbon cap and trade legislation sponsored by Waxman/Markey. The EPA’s endangerment finding was solely at the President’s behest and in direct opposition to the message sent to him by his very own party which was in control. Do you dispute that?
Moreover, one of the lead authors of the Clean Air Act was John Dingel; Democrat, Michigan. At the time of the EPA’s CO2 endangerment finding Dingel publicly stated that the Clean Air Act was never intended to regulate CO2 as a pollutant. Additionally, the EPA took it upon itself to rewrite the tailoring rule so it could single out powerplants.
Do you really believe this “legislation” (i.e.: edict) from the EPA was subject to the “purview” of congress? Do you really believe the Framers intended for an administrative agency to arbitrarily impose law at the President’s request, and against the will of congress? Is that your idea of Constitutionality?
The Supreme Court was reigning this in.

Another huge scam coming is the EPA effort to declare silica dust a carcinogen and requiring the same costly measures as asbestos. I joked about that long ago, in an attempt to show how ridiculous the asbestos hysteria was. Imagine simply stopping all construction using concrete, because it is prohibitively expensive to take the “necessary” precautions. The real lesson should be to understand asbestos may be carcinogenic, but such a low level that we shouldn’t worry about it. I would bet the risk of mesothelioma from asbestos is less than the risk of stomach or colon cancer from benzo(a)pyrene. Should EPA ban BBQ?

@ Tom Judd, 5:33 am, I am trying to make sense out of this. Is this the correct view point? The EPA put in place a ” regulation” and not a law and reached beyond their “Mandate” is that why SCOTUS nixed it? To me T. Madigan’s description of Judge Scalia is beyond believe. ALL people from all sides have said judge Scalia was a constitutionalist and beyond reproach. I take serious exception to his low level attack on Scalia. My God the gentleman is not even in his grave!

“The only question before the court would be did the president’s actions in Paris run afoul of the Constitution, not so much substantively but with regard to his following of legal protocol and I don’t think it did”
In my mind, the only question is whether or not a REAL catastrophe will happen if coal fired power plants are not shut down, or whether the President is deluded. There has to be room in the courts minds the possibility that the President is simply ‘over the top’ on this issue, and that it needs full deliberation by Congress. In the long term, would support for the President doing an end run around Congress be support for future Presidents to act like Kings?
IMO, the proper SC decision would be to respect the role of the legislative process and just say no, ie, tell the President to go do your job and make your case to Congress. It is not enough to say that they(Congress) are too stupid, and that you, the President have no choice but to go around them.

The problem is the EPA creates a situation where rolling back its overreach fails to provide equitable relief. Not to mention the EPA’s legal tactics border on racketeering.
Of course presidents actions in Paris far exceeded his authority. Does the POTUS have the right to mandate how many times a day I can exhale my CO2?
That the Supreme Court upheld CO2 as a pollutant belongs in the Idiocracy sequel.

It had no choice in Mass v. EPA, a classic sue and settle. Appellate courts do not determine facts, only law. The only way would have been if the EPA did not follow the CAA’s prescribed determination process, the basis for SCOTUS overturning the EPA’s new mercury regs. That route was not available on the CO2 determination.

Gee, the Constitution has a minor little clause that treaties must be affirmed by a two-thirds vote of the Senate. How, pray tell, does Obama get to make a binding commitment without any Senate vote? Arguably, what Obama is doing is an impeachable offense in flatly violating the Constitution. Of course, the Surender Caucus in congress is terrified in reining in any Democrat.

COP21 is not binding, and therefore is not a treaty as defined by the Constitution. The operative definition accepted by SCOTUS being that of Thomas Jefferson, who certainly knew what the Framers meant by treaty.

Agree with Ristvan
The Paris agreement was carefully shaped not to be an enforceable treaty so it would not go to the Senate.
Watch the wording in the press as ‘agreement’ is manhandled into the word ‘treaty’ by adding ‘obligations’ to the text. The attempt relies on ignorance, to succeed. The cure is knowledge and awareness.

Wow. I don’t know if it’s the smug condescending attitude or the willingness to judge a man as not living up to the ideals of a religion you clearly don’t share, but you come across in this post as a complete and utter scumbag. I actually agree to an extent with you that the Supreme Court probably overstepped their authority by seeing this case before a lower court had, although I think they probably felt they had to because of how quickly the EPA and Obama were pushing it through. But now I want to change my mind just so I won’t have to share an opinion with someone as utterly contemptible as you.

schitzree,
“I actually agree to an extent with you that the Supreme Court probably overstepped their authority by seeing this case before a lower court had, …”
The Supreme Court did not overstep their authority. They merely issued a Stay. The EPA clearly had no idea whether their regulation would withstand a court challenge. Indeed, they may have suspected it wouldn’t. So, what they did was issue a deliberately short deadline for compliance with the rule. In the time it took for the legal gears to turn the deadline would’ve come and passed. Since legal decisions always tend to be a bit of a crapshoot no utility could be assured that the EPA’s reg would fail the challenge. If it didn’t (and there would be no way to know) they’d be penalized for being in noncompliance. So, regardless of the ultimate outcome in the courts the utility would have no choice but to comply anyway. That was the purpose and plan behind the EPA’s actions and they openly admitted it.
Despite T. Madigan’s high falutin’ reinvention of the Constitution the foregoing description of the EPA’s (and the President’s) shenanigans is NOT proper application of the law. The Supreme Court merely issued a stay insuring the regulation cannot be imposed or applied until AFTER the courts had determined its legality.

Hey Tom. Thanks, yes I saw some of this on how the SC needed to act quickly because of the short deadline from the EPA. Where I’m not to clear is when the Supreme Court can rule on something without a prior court case already being in the courts. Are they able to vote on a stay BECAUSE the EPA regulation is likely to be challenged, and this allows for time for that challenge before the regulation goes into effect?

You have quite a few factual errors in this analysis, for example that Obama being able to appoint a Supreme Court justice–he nominates one, but his nomination only advances to an appointment witha Senate vote. The President may enter into agreements with other nations, but he cannot impose onerous costs and obligations once again without following the advice and consent of the Senate. You misunderstand Federalism, you appear not to understand how a Constitutional Republic is supposed to work, and by refering to the West Virginia AG as a rat, you show a poor understanding of how politics is supposed to find compromise and avoid combat.

TMadigan: The more you type, the more ignorance is shown. If a request for stay is denied in lower court, pretty sure it’s an appealable order in fed court. This is not unprecedented at all, though it may be rare because request for stay of a regulation like this is routinely granted by lower courts, then it’s not appealed. And your idea of scope of exec authority doesn’t merit a response.

That was my opening comment, George. To “interpret” the law as to its constitutionality; if you go back to my opening comments, that is what I wrote. “It” in this context is referring to the statute under review.

From what I’ve seen of the Social Justice Warrior crowd there’s a Plan ‘B’ in the works, alright- Plan Bomb. That also may take some time to get moving but you know something is wrong when you see comments about destroying power plants outright.

I don’t see how this is bad for greens – not yet, anyway. It is bad timing, though. Scalia’s position was a good defence against the excesses of progressive fantasy.
It’s quite sickening to see progressives dance around the fire playing their fiddles. How typical that they would celebrate the death of someone they don’t like. As for conservatives (including Ted Cruz) making pronouncements about his replacement, that’s pathetic. Can politicians – conservative or not – just STFU now and again? They talk too fucking much.
BTW, the idea that Scalia was assassinated is incredible. I mean, really. There is no known credible motive for doing so.

We need to repeal the Clean Air Act and make the EPA an advisory body, not a regulatory body. Concentrating this much power in an un-elected group of people that are easily manipulated by the political leadership is antithetical to the way America was intended to function. We have a government organisation that puts the environment above the needs and will of the people.

“a government organisation that puts the environment above the needs and will of the people.”
Correction: Pretends to put the environment above the needs and will of the people.
The environment is a tool and so are you.

“Concentrating this much power in an un-elected group of people that are easily manipulated by the political leadership” sounds very much like the Supreme Court – these 9 individuals, who aren’t even required to have law degrees(!), are the legacy or living memory of some past president’s particular ideology.
“Repeal the Clean Air Act”? Seriously, you’ve got to be kidding?! That’s like repealing the Surgeon General’s warning on a pack of Marlboros that “Smoking is Bad for your health and has been known to cause cancer”. Why would you want to repeal “one of the most comprehensive air quality laws in the world” and go back to the days of leaded gasoline and choking smog?

Why does the EPA drag their feet in true emergencies as in the toxic spill near Silverton Colorado and the lead problem in Flint? When it comes to CO2 emissions from Coal Fired Power Plants EPA ses a “Fast and Furious” schedule? In all three examples, the EPA’s legality has come into question. Are the EPA capable of operating within the laws set forth? Gina has much to answer for and it’s time to get those answers and hold the EPA lead by Gina accountable.

The EPA should not have the power to write new regulations. They should only maintain the ones now on the books, and some of those should be repealed by acts of Congress. The quality of at least some of the studies used to justify regulations is amazingly poor. For example, much of the work on metal toxicity in water is very preliminary. Seems to be a series of hysterical rushes to judgment in order to support one large power grab after another.

Hopefully McConnel will not bring up any of Obama’s nominee’s for a vote, and hopefully a new president will be Ted Cruz. If Obama gets another one of his activist judges on there, the left will destroy the whole country through the courts.

McConnell says he won’t allow a vote and would require 14 GOP senators anyway to reach supermajority of 60.
Still won’t look good to black voters if Halder or Lynch or any other Obama nominee isn’t allowed a vote.

Marcus,
Trump has a reasonable expectation of doing better among black voters than has been usual in recent decades, so anything that harms the GOP brand in this community hurts his chances, and even more so among Republican candidates of longer membership in the party. Cruz and Rubio would actually have to vote against Holder or whomever if Obama’s nominee came to a floor vote. But probably wouldn’t get out of committee. Dunno if either senator is on the Judiciary Committee itself.

@Paul Westhaver, just curious, do you have an opinion, being a catholic, regarding his quite visible absence from Pope Francis’ September address to the joint session of congress, convened specifically for that purpose – by former speaker of the House, John Boehner (a catholic and former alter boy), the political hero of some on this forum? As a catholic, you should regard that as an insult and an affront to the Pope who, according to Catholic Theology, is the vicar of Christ. I know I did; it was quite visible, so much so, that many secular news pundits produced a veritable hurricane of hot air on it. Someone of Scalia’s stature and openly Catholic persona, should have been in attendance, don’t you think? To me, as one of the most outspoken and obnoxious members of the court, it was a political statement, above all (in that this pope has a particular sensitivity and affection for the poor) and I would suggest it was an act of latent racism, that Pope Francis hails from Argentina, a very Spanish country.

Madigan says:…just curious, do you have an opinion, being a catholic, regarding his quite visible absence from Pope Francis’ September address to the joint session of congress…
The court is supposed to be non-political, so your criticism that “you should regard that as an insult and an affront to the Pope” is nonsense. As is your statement that “as one of the most outspoken and obnoxious members of the court, it was a political statement” is total BS. Who are you to judge?
And so is your judgement: “I would suggest it was an act of latent racism”.
Your name-calling upon the death of this great American is reprehensible and despicable. With his body still warm you can’t resist the urge to label him guilty of “Racism!!”
There is something fundamentally screwed up with people like you.

T. Madigan,
I have never mentioned to what religion, if any, I adhere. Often my defense of truth, in the face of overt hatred towards Catholics may seem polemic. Truth has no religion. In this science blog, far too often, history, reason, and facts are casualties to scapegoating, smears, and ultimately the propagation of misinformation which serves no one. Certainly not objective truth and scientific inquiry. The harsh dismissal of George Henri Lemaitre in 1920s is particularly bothersome. It slowed science by 40 years. The closed minds of those axe grinding atheists pervert truth and reason. Fred Hoyle became a laughing stock in the end.
All that being said, since you address me directly, and you use your real name, I will respond to you respectfully, and I hope, thoughtfully.
I refer you to Scalia’s tridentine affiliation, his love of law, the British Common Law, which comes from Canon Law of the Church, and intellectual honesty in saying and practicing what he believes. He was no hypocrite to be sure. I refer you to 3 paragraphs of cannon law of which an intellectual giant like Scalia would be aware:
Canons 211 and 212 of the Code of Canon Law:
Can. 211 All the Christian faithful have the duty and right to work so that the divine message of salvation more and more reaches all people in every age and in every land.
Can. 212 §1. Conscious of their own responsibility, the Christian faithful are bound to follow with Christian obedience those things which the sacred pastors, inasmuch as they represent Christ, declare as teachers of the faith or establish as rulers of the Church.
§2. The Christian faithful are free to make known to the pastors of the Church their needs, especially spiritual ones, and their desires.
§3. According to the knowledge, competence, and prestige which they possess, they have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful, without prejudice to the integrity of faith and morals, with reverence toward their pastors, and attentive to common advantage and the dignity of persons.
Paraphrased: [ informed Catholics are obligated to educate the misguided but you better get you facts straight]
I also remind you, as I am sure you know, that Pope Francis holds 3 offices. 1) Head of State of the Vatican, a sovereign country, 2) Bishop of Rome, 3) and Holy See (Head of the Church)
The capacity in which Pope Francis was invited by Boehner to the US joint session of Congress was as the head of state of the Vatican. Francis wore his Dominican vestments and assumed the persona of a shepherd of the flock, but he was not celebrating Mass. So… Scalia was not required to be present as a catholic.
So if anyone understands his responsibilities, as a catholic, and a SCJ, it was Scalia. He also understood his role in popular culture. To say Scalia was motivated by racism is shallow demagoguery, and I would ask how anyone would know what was in his heart and to say such a thing about a person is wrong.
Pope Francis may well be from Argentina but I believe his race is Caucasian, as is Scalia’s. If Scalia had objections to Francis, it was likely due to Francis’ ideas: embracing of liberation theology, socialism, the UN, and 2 haphazardly written encyclicals. In my opinion.

Six of the nine justices during Francis’ visit were Catholic and three Jewish. Three of the six Catholic members of the USSC did not attend the pope’s scolding of America: not just Scalia, but Alito and Thomas. Like Francis, Scalia and Alito are also of Italian ancestry. The population of Argentina is more Italian in descent than Spanish.

@Paul Westhaver, Paul a great and informative post. I should have known that but didn’t! Canon Law has never been my forte (more cannon law given my engineering background ;-). One question: Why do you mention Pope Francis in Dominican vestments? Pope Francis is a Jesuit.

Hoplite,
Thanks, but within the confines due to my frailties, I am just trying to keep the facts straight.
wrt dominican vestments: It is true that Francis is a jesuit (and another I think) but he wore the white vestments and skull cap, the clothing worn by Saint Dominic~1200 AD, the patron Saint of astronomers. All modern popes wear the Dominican white in homage to Dominic’s saving of the Church and the promotion of the now ubiquitous Rosary. The vestments are a reflection of the office, not his sacrament of Holy Orders.

I am wondering what RACE we would assign to SPANISH people? On what continent do we find Spain? What part of Argentina’s population descend from individuals we would describe as Italian? Or German? Or Swiss? Or French? Or Anglo-Scottish? Or Irish? Is there a significant African descendant population? Even a significant indigenous American population?
I suspect Speaker Madigan’s(Illinois House Speaker and State Democrat Chairman) namesake is a bit confused. Argentina had a per capita GDP of over 70% of the US in the early 20th Century and now has a per capita GDP of 23% of the US. Could it be this anti-Christian Pope has bought the theology of Gaia? Does he just not understand that Peron, being in the tradition of the clone twins Hitler and Lenin, reduced the economic well-being of Argentina?
Can any society produce wealth and equality by Government? The evidence says “NO”. The evidence says CO2 has little effect on climate but Madigan argues that Government must control everything or the “Oceans will boil”.
I think God, or some universal property of the human psyche, requires SELF actualization, SELF control and SELF sufficiency. The divergence of US and Argentinian evolution supports my view. Add in the modern journey of most African nations, and the contrast with China and India, and I think my opinion is well validated.

Hoplite… just so you don’t learn my errors, the term vestment in the vernacular can mean clothes (latin – vesti – dress) . But it would be more correct to refer to his white garments as a “cassock” (the dominican part) and the “vestments” would be the robes over his shoulders….if you want to be super technical about ecclesiastical garments in this science/legal blog. 🙂 I was playing loose with terminology.

John H. Harmon
February 14, 2016 at 9:41 am
Correct. Obviously Spanish is not a race. Argentina, as noted, is in any case predominantly Italian, with a smaller proportion of citizens of American Indian and African ancestry than most other Latin American countries.
Nino and Francis both had Italian immigrant fathers married to women born in the New World to Italian immigrant parents. Francis’ parents were northern Italian and Nino’s southern. His dad was Sicilian and his mom ‘s parents, the Pananos, possibly Neapolitan, but I don’t know for sure.
IMO, Scalia, Alito and Thomas were right to boycott Francis.

Thank you Paul (5:24 am,) I will miss him as well. As to your comments later regarding the Pope I totally agree ( also with Kim’s short statement @ 6:55 am). T. Madigan’s “assessments” (very loosely spoken) on this site I can only describe with one word, “Troll””

.”.. Only affects USA, not important for the rest of us…”
Obviously you’re not from Poland, Latvia, Hungary, South Korea, or other nations that are free because of what “affects the USA”. Glad you can solely rely on your own efforts, and don’t bother to call if something goes wrong.
We’re all in this together, unless you are from some different planet…

Maybe RoHa meant ‘majority’ in the literal, planetary sense. The majority of humans right now are in Asia, predominantly China and India, and they look to be in position to do quite well regardless of how the US flushes it’s economy down the toilet.

Judge Michel Déziel should stay in office: Canadian Judicial Council
Déziel admitted to handling illegal campaign donation during 1997 Blainville municipal election
By Sarah Leavitt, CBC News Posted: Dec 03, 2015 3:51 PM ET| Last Updated: Dec 03, 2015 4:10 PM EThttp://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/judge-michel-deziel-cleared-canadian-judicial-council-1.3349466
■ Quebec judge under review over election fraud accusationshttp://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-judge-under-review-over-election-fraud-accusations-1.1364079
■ Judge Michel Déziel admits to handling illegal campaign donationhttp://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/judge-michel-d%C3%A9ziel-admits-to-handling-illegal-campaign-donation-1.2989225
The Canadian Judicial Council is recommending that Quebec Superior Court Judge Michel Déziel remain on the bench.
A panel of 20 Council members launched a review after a witness before the Charbonneau Commission alleged Déziel asked a political fixer to launder illegal cash donations for an election campaign.
Gilles Cloutier testified at the inquiry that Déziel, who is currently a sitting judge in Laval, Que., helped commit election fraud nearly 15 years ago while he was a lawyer.
Testifying before the panel, Déziel admitted he handed over more than $30,000 from an engineering firm to a municipal political party during a 1997 campaign, even though he knew corporate donations were illegal.
“Council agreed with Justice Déziel that this past conduct was inappropriate,” the council wrote in a news release.
However, with three members dissenting, Council found that the judge’s past action, “when considered against a number of factors, did not undermine public confidence in his abilities to discharge the duties of his judicial office.”
The Ministry of Justice will consider the recommendations and make its own decision.
********

WUWT, you need to organize an Open Source Temperature Reconstruction..
This could be the first Open Source Temperature Reconstruction. No longer would Governments be able to have the final say. Everything in the Exxon competition would be open to the public, unlike the NOAA and NASA adjustments.
1) WUWT should sponsor a scientific competition to create a temperature reconstruction.
2) A panel of world renowned statisticians, mathematicians, economatricians, data and scientific analysis experts would set the best accepted practice guidelines in advance that need to be followed.
3) Only raw data would be used from NASA, NOAA, East Anglia MET, Satellite Data from UAH, Tree Ring, Ice Core, Coral, Wine, CO2 and other needed data sources.
4) Adjustments to the Data would have to be clearly outlined and explained to ensure they git in the best practices.
5) All data, models, adjustments would be made available to the public for scrutiny, it would be an open source reconstruction project.
6) The winning construction would be selected by the expert panel, but the reasoning would be published so others can judge the credibility.
Bottom line, WUWT needs to shine the light on the shady world exposed in the climategate emails. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, make the climate “scientists” face the truth and force them to answer to the public. Nothing they do, from the “adjustments” to complete reconstructions, would ever pass real scientific scrutiny. Progressives demand accountability from WUWT, WUWT needs to demand accountability from them. Hold them to the same standard. Turn the table on the critics.

Yes Geoff. The Culture of Death, will revel in their time. You will know them by what they do. 🙂
Frankly, I hope all his enemies show absolutely no restraint in their vitriol. It is always good to know who stands for life and liberty and who stands for death and evil. I suggest everyone take notes on who says what and memorialize it.

Re: recess appointments by POTUS of SCOTUS justices
{copied from my comment here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/02/13/the-law-lawsuits-and-climate-change/#comment-2144535 )
Yes, Mr. Smit, however, Barack Hussein can only recess-appoint a SCOTUS justice temporarily:
” … less than two years ago, the Supreme Court severely narrowed the flexibility of such temporary {recess} appointment power, and strengthened the Senate’s capacity to frustrate such a presidential maneuver. ***
The presidential authority at issue in this possible scenario exists, according to Article II, when the Senate has gone into recess and the vacancy a president seeks to fill remains. Such an appointment requires no action at all by the Senate, but the appointee can only serve until the end of the following Senate session. The president (if still in office) can then try again during a new Senate session, by making a new nomination, and that must be reviewed by the Senate. ***
in National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning {http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/national-labor-relations-board-v-noel-canning/ } … The Court expanded the concept of when the Senate would be in recess so that the president could make a temporary appointment, but it also gave the Senate more control over when it does recess and how long the recesses last. ***
The bottom line is that, if President Obama is to successfully name a new Supreme Court Justice {i.e., who will sit longer than just the end of the following Senate session}, he will have to run the gauntlet of the Republican-controlled Senate, and prevail there. The only real chance of that: if he picks a nominee so universally admired that it would be too embarrassing for the Senate not to respond.”
(Source: http://www.scotusblog.com/2016/02/is-a-recess-appointment-to-the-court-an-option/#more-238235 )

Well, Matthew W, in theory, McConnell, does, he is a Republican. He is a RINO (Republican In Name Only), however, so, who knows. Others will pressure McC,, though, he isn’t the WHOLE show in the Senate.

This is what the democrats did to Bush his last two years too keep him from making recess appointments.. They left three people on the floor at all times to constitute a quorum of an operating Senate. IF we do this to the democrats watch the whaling and gnashing of teeth that will ensue… Good for the Goose, Good for the Gander! IMHO

But apparently there is a short period of time next January when the current session of Congress ends and President Obama will still be in office He will be able to make a permanent appointment to the court without any restrictions at that time.

Janice Moore -in my previous post I was referring to the fact that the 114th Congress ends 3 January 2017 at noon and the 115th begins then, while President Obama will still be in office until 20 January 2017. If the Democrats win back control of the Senate, he could make an appointment that could be confirmed. It would not be a recess appointment. 24 Republican seats are up for election. Dems need to win 4 or 5 to take control, assuming they retain the 12 Democratic seats up for election.

That post on SOCTUS blog has been updated. It so happens that the senate is in recess right now.
I’ll admit up front that this is wild-eyed conspiracy theorizing, but…
McConnell’s categorical refusal to even consider any nomination made by Obama gives the latter cover to make a recess appointment. He can say “the Senate has made it clear that it will not honor its constitutional obligations, but I must honor mine. I therefore reluctantly nominate…”
Then his appointee can lift the stay and the EPA can continue implementing the clean power plan. As others have pointed out, there are other important cases before the court this term.

That post on scotusblog has been updated. The Senate happens to be in recess right now.
McConnell has given Obama cover to make a recess appointment by categorically refusing to consider any nominees, perhaps on purpose.
Obama’s nominee can then lift the stay and allow the EPA to continue to implement their “Clean Power” plan.
She can also vote on allowing the teacher’s unions to continue to extract money from teachers who don’t agree with what’s done with their dues.
Sure this nominee’s term will end next year, but by that time the damage will be done. It’s unlikely the court would agree to hear a case on a matter that was just adjudicated in their previous term.

Scalia was a strict constitutionalist. He believed that the document was created in strict construction and that very little (more likely none) ambiguity was intended. Social justice is the act of placing feelings and personal biases above the law and this is the type of person Obama will appoint, which will have devastating consequences for the US Constitution.
Keeping Obama from placing a left wing ideologue on the court is imperative to our nations survival. As Obama is a UN – One World Government guy, and openly so. It is imperative we stop any appointment that he would make. I expect the race card and others to be played in an effort to forward the left agenda of top down command and control government. The EPA over-reach the SCOTUS stopped was part of that plan..
Scalia was one of the only things blocking this radical left wing philosophy from happening.
RIP Justice Scalia, you will be sorely missed.
Dangerous times are ahead if we do not maintain the courts current balance.

Bill H: said:
“Obama is a UN – One World Government guy, and openly so.”
Here is the problem with One World Government.
Of the over 200 countries in the world, only about 10% have some form of Rule of Law that is even partially fair and competent. Most of these countries are run by corrupt thugs who gain power, rule by force, and live far better than their people do.
The highly dysfunctional United Nations is an example of what happens when you have a bunch of corrupt, incompetent dictatorships running the show.
Do you really want to have these corrupt thugs running your country?
Best to all, Allan

@T. Madigan:
Definition of a treaty that I copied off of the Internet:
“trea·ty
ˈtrēdē/
noun
noun: treaty; plural noun: treaties
a formally concluded and ratified agreement between countries.
synonyms: agreement, settlement, pact, deal, entente, concordat, accord, protocol, convention, contract, covenant, bargain, pledge; More
concord, compact
“several terms of the treaty were casually violated”
Notice some of the listed synonyms for treaty: agreement, deal, etc….
If the agreement that Obama signed in Paris doesn’t meet the definition of a treaty, then I’m Smokey The Bear…..and I’m not. If he is implementing it as his Clean Power Plan in the absence of Congressional approval, he is clearly in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Arguing that their is a difference betwween an “agreement between nations” on one hand and a “treaty between nations” on the other is playing fun and games with the definition of words for political, activist and ideological purposes. Knowing that this is an impeachable offense in violation of the consistution should make any individiual that still cares about that document relieved that SCOTUS ruled the way it did…irregardless of the reasons for it.
Obama’s sidestepping of Congress here demonstrates his disregard for the constitution and for law when it comes to implementing his green ideological agenda. That should be a frightening thing to see for anyone who still cares about the constitution and the law, and Obama’s behavior here mirrors the reasons why his critics refer to him as a “dictator” or “King”.
None of this is to say that I don’t want a clean environment…of course we all do. I have no problem with a plan that phases out this nation’s coal plants. Nuclear power is the only technology that can do it though, and we need nuclear power plants already in place (or at least on the way) if we are to phase out coal plants someday. Fourth generation nuclear power like thorium fuelled molten salt reactors are the way to go IMHO. Nuclear power is what Obama should be concentrating his efforts on, not a war on coal.
The problem here is not Obama’s ends, but the MEANS to his ends…..

“Arguing that their is a difference betwween an “agreement between nations” on one hand and a “treaty between nations” on the other is playing fun and games with the definition of words for political, activist and ideological purposes”
Without ratification, it’s an agreement between nations and one administration. The next can arbitrarily decide, “No, we’re not doing this any longer.” Only an act of congress could bind the abilities of the next president. In theory, the next president could throw every single “legal” Marijuana grower in the country in prison, because while a state may say it’s not a violation of its laws, it remains illegal at the federal level.. Obama and Co merely said that they were going to look the other way much as they ignore other laws they don’t like. A decision by one president can be changed be the next one.

@kcrucible. Thanks for your reply. I imagine that lack of congressional ratification does indeed give the next adminstration a good arugment for tossing the Paris agreement out the window if it so chooses (and I hope that it does so). Unfortunately, if Clinton or Sanders win in November, I get the sense that dumping the agreement isn’t going to happen.
If the agreement isn’t tosssed out by the next administration, then the attempted implementation of it by the new admistration in the absence of congressional ratification still SHOULD be an issue. One would think that SCOTUS would clearly see that. If Scalia is replaced by a green-minded leftist justice however, there will be no guarantees.
At any rate, the next 11-12 months are going to be very interesting to say the least.

CD, see my comment upthreat. The meaning of a treaty for purposes of article two was precisely defined by Thomas Jefferson. Look it up in a legal refence, not a dictionary. COP21 is neither a treaty (no opt out) nor a pact (opt out, requiring simple congressional majorities) for constitutional purposes. It is an executive agreement falling into the third of three narrow categories where the president can act unilaterally: 1 as commander in cheif, 2 recognition of ambassadors (which covers more than it seems), 3 as part of his obligation to faithfully uphold the law.
None of which means the CPP isn’t likely unconstitutional. Hence the stay.

@ristvan: Thanks ristvan. I hadn’t realized that there was a legal definition of a treaty that differred from the dictionary definition. if it is unconstitutional for other reasons, it’s good to see SCOTUS put a hold on the CPP anyway.

CD, it is big time unconstitutional. None other than Harvard Law’s Foremost Con Law prof wrote that brief on behalf of the states. He has been castigated by other Harvard warmunist faculty like Oreskies.

The though just occurred to me that there are 29 states who are enjoined in this action and 6 more are contemplating joining it. This means there are 35 states who are saying no to this action.
WE only require 33 states to call a constitutional convention… IF the court does not strike this down WE THE PEOPLE may just do it ourselves. And then where would that leave our left wing ideological people..
There are calls to severely limit the executive branch and put our government back in its limited cage…The Death of Scalia may have just tipped the scales to a convention..

While his death is regrettable, it is more than worrying that major US policy decisions could now ‘hinge’ upon this one event.
Perhaps the ‘Founding Fathers’ missed something here when designing The Constitution?

“Perhaps the ‘Founding Fathers’ missed something here when designing The Constitution?”
The founding fathers never intended the courts to interpret law.. their job was to apply the law to specific instances, the job of congress was to create the laws, and the job of the executive was to do the grunt work of implementing the laws.
Where we have ended up is a due to a long and twisty road, where the courts seized power never specifically granted to them and both Congress and the President said, “ok.” By not denying the power, they basically granted the power to the courts going forward.
One thing the founding fathers didn’t anticipate would be the rise of loyalty to political parties trumping loyalty to the constitution and adherence to the law… where congressmen are willing to let someone slide because they’re on the same team and have the same goals, rather than making an example out of them to uphold the law. As a result, I predict that you’ll never see a president impeached (because to do so, one party would need to control a supermajority) and this has basically rendered Congress impotent. Obama saw that and called the Constitution’s bluff. There isn’t actually an effective system of checks and balances between the legislature and executive. The scary part is, that any balances the courts offer has nothing to back it up that the executive doesn’t grant it. A president could theoretically just ignore a court order just as it ignores laws written by congress. What’s the court going to do? Write a stern letter? The country is headed into dangerous waters.

The Founding Fathers were the first to acknowledge they missed some things. For example, early on, they recognized that one of the things they missed was the possibility of political parties, especially in elections. Defining the winner in the electoral college “vote” President and the runner up VP of course immediately proved unworkable.
We’d do well to remember the exchange between Ben Franklin and a citizen at the end of the Constitutional Convention:
“Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?”
“A Republic, if you can keep it.”
As mentioned down thread they intentionally gave us a remedy – called the Amendment Process.
BTW, if I were Scalia responding to folks who objected to his originalist and textualist stance (It means exactly what it says, in the context of the times in which it was written”) – If it no longer applies or you just plain don’t like it, then change it! And go back to the Constitution to find out how!

Kcrucible,
Sorry, I posted before seeing your reply. You did a much better job of explaining why partisanship is a deadly virus attacking the ideals of the Founding Fathers.
(BTW, another thing they “remembered they forgot” was who would decide if a law was consistent with the Constitution. Many Framers assumed that “somehow” this would be the role of one of the houses of Congress, in debate. John Marshall grabbed that prize in “Marbury”.)

Respect for Rule of Law is what differentiates the few rich successful countries in the world from the many poor failed ones.
Justice Scalia was a good man and a great judge – history will remember him well.
Condolences to his family and friends.
Best to all, Allan

(Continuing): “Now the Obama administration can simply have the EPA come up with a slightly different new plan …. It’s unlikely the now-divided SC would come up with a majority vote to stay the new rules.”

Even a slightly different plan can not be implemented until the issue is resolved. The injunction stands. Circumvention of the court is frowned upon even by socialist liberals.
Our only hope it to boot libs out of office, approve no appointee to SCOTUS, and then deal with these issues once a republican is put back in office. Aside from that it will go down hill fast and america as we know it will become Obama’s dream of a third world country divided and fragmented ready for take over by the UN..
There is so much riding on this it scares me to death. What will my grand children will be left with.. A once great nation torn to shreds by left wing fools, all becasue we didn’t stand up to them over the last 30 years or so..
Our founding fathers are rolling in their graves today, all their work on the edge of a knife, becasue we didn’t call these people out long ago..

Bill H said: “Even a slightly different plan can not be implemented until the issue is resolved. The injunction stands. Circumvention of the court is frowned upon even by socialist liberals.”
Good. Phew!

There are procedures for court decisions with only 8 justices (there have historically been even numbers before and also more and fewer judges). But what happens when the decision is tied is that the lower court decision stands.

“The American people‎ should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice,” Mitch McConnell said in a statement, referring to the upcoming November general election.
“Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”

Um, if roles were reversed and this happened with a GOP President, I bet all the posters calling for Obama to not appoint someone, will be reversed and calls to have the GOP President appoint someone during his or her last years in office.
And you all know you will do this. This is what ‘partisan’ is all about. This is why even mild reminders of the past that conflicts with ideology beliefs cause great ire.
A reminder: we have no real democracy anymore because we have a very screwed up election system that gets worse and worse and now, is on the verge of dangerous collapse. No one should be happy about this. And furthermore, I greatly support the idea of a third party and have been a member of third parties in the past because this keeps things from being polarized and prevents winners from ignoring campaign promises which BOTH parties do.

Stepping down from the speaker’s podium, I sit down in one of the empty chairs (no one was listening to me, I was just talking in case someone might come into the empty room and be enlightened or persuaded). A great bridge to freedom over the chasm of socialist anarchy collapsed yesterday. The United States is in grave peril, for it will take a truly mighty mind and a perseveringly strong heart to fill that gap in the road to freedom. Such an issue demands thoughtful discussion.
But, I am just sad. Oh, how I wish Antonin Scalia had walked down to breakfast on February 13, 2016, grinning and filling the room with his laughter and wit. Oh, how our country needed him to write, “one more line… .” He was going to turn 80 years old on March 11 — a big family party was probably already being planned…
I am happy for “Nino,” of course. He is where the daggers of his blindly irrational critics can no longer reach him, where he can walk, no, run!, with no sharp pain in his hip, where he can sing opera arias AS LOUDLY AS HE WANTS TO…… forever….., and no one will mind. He is in all-joy, all-peace, all-rational-logos.
But, I am sad. And so is his family.This is for all of us who are mourning the loss of one of Liberty’s greatest champions, who are mourning the loss of a fine man, who are mourning the loss of a dearly loved husband, dad, and grandfather:
“One Last Time” (Diamond Rio)

Dear Mr. Westhaver,
Do you read what I wrote in my comment above??
Yes, C. S. Lewis is my favorite author. One of my favorite quotes (from the end of The Last Battle from memory only) is:The term is over, the holidays have begun;
the dream is ended, this is the morning.
Puzzled at your responses, but grateful for your caring enough to try to inform me,
Janice

Well..I am sure Nino, now suspended in all time and perfect in his knowledge, is enjoying his “morning”. And yes I read your post. I always do. Sometimes I write. Mostly I read. Before I write I have to think and often I am too busy to think.

You have my admiration, Mr. Westhaver, for being so busy. I have waaaay too much time on my hands. Thanks for your kind reply.
I’m looking forward to meeting Justice Scalia in heaven 🙂 . Oh, boy, the intelligent conversations up there!! THAT will be so WONDERFUL!!! (most people, actually, I could pretty much say EVERYONE is too busy for conversations in my little corner of the world).

“Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos.” John Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1801-1835
Scalia is with friends today! Ones who cherished liberty and freedom.. Their dire predictions as John Adams states below, will they come to pass?
“Remember, democracy never last long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy that did not commit suicide.” John Adams.
Men Like Scalia kept this from happening. Who will step forward and do it now?

And what is ‘democracy”? VOTING. And what remains screwed up ever since Bush Jr. was put into office? That item is what has gone missing. It is still a mess and will cause messes in the future due to not fixing what went wrong back in 2000.
Both the far left and far right want a broken system they both can exploit even if this means civil war.

There is a reason we were founded as a Representative Republic.. Yes there is voting, but it is checked and balanced by those representatives that were voted for. It was not intended to be direct voting for a cause, as this breeds a popularity contest and voting ourselves the wealth of others, wealth theft. Both we were warned about being the potential death of our Republic. Socialism is not the answer. Going back to a feudal system is not the answer.
America is that grand experiment that blossomed into the greatest nation on earth becasue they unleashed the power of the sovereign citizen who has the right to protect themselves. Placing us in chains as Obama and the left want to do is not what Justice Scalia protected. His stance on the EPA was a beat down of that power grab.
IF the executive power grab is not knocked down the people will and must respond to keep America alive. Why do you think they so desperately want to take our ability to fend off tyranny from us? Washington is broken, they fear WE THE PEOPLE… More government and a more intrusive government is not the answer. If they were actually doing the will of WE THE PEOPLE they would have no reason to fear us..
The founding fathers had it right, when the government no longer fears WE THE PEOPLE, they can and will do anything they like to us, becasue we will then be fearing them. Scalia understood this principal and he recognized executive over-reach and unlawful acts. The EPA is now running unchecked and unaccountable doing the left wing agenda by force..
And all of this with no shred of empirical evidence that man is actually influencing anything…
The loss of Scalia will be felt for generations and may just have dire consequences for this nations life. The court, like science, is supposed to be about provable facts, not left wing feel good propaganda.

IF, and I say IF, Obama can put forth a strict constitutional judge, that can differentiate political agenda and liberal ideology from the strict constitutional law boundaries I might have reason to change my mind, but as I said before, I dont know any liberal legal scholar that doesn’t use social justice and the trampling of others rights over strict interpretation of the Constitution.
I am not hopeful nor am I holding my breath..

We do NOT need a Compromiser. We need a Conscience.
Scalia said the founders said what they meant (and it worked for a hundred plus years). If after all this time you see that they were wrong (and they owned up to several errors), then use the process they devised to change the words.
Cruz does not get along with his Senate colleagues. I’d love to see him on SCOTUS not getting along with his peers there; but rather writing dissents for future law students.

On another page a contributor wrote:
In 1960 the Democrat senate passed a resolution to with-hold selection in an election year until After the election.
Header from the American Thinker.
I had no luck trying to verify this, does anyone know if it is true, and if so, would this prevent the senate from approving any nomination until after the election? Would this make a temporary appointment more likely?

It’s tricky:S.RES. 334. Expressing the sense of the Senate that the Pres. should not make recess appointments to the Supreme Court, except to prevent or end a breakdown in the administration of the Court’s business. Keating motion to recommit to Judicary Comm.
This looks like a vote on a motion to send the resolution to committee, which Democrat Senate defeated in a 100% partisan vote (albeit, there were abstentions, all Dems). It’s not clear to me that the resolution actually ever passed, result is listed as “unknown”.
The WP’s David Bernstein lays out the historical context:https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/02/13/flashback-senate-democrats-in-1960-pass-resolution-against-election-year-supreme-court-recess-appointments/Thanks to a VC commenter, I discovered that in August 1960, the Democrat-controlled Senate passed a resolution, S.RES. 334, “Expressing the sense of the Senate that the president should not make recess appointments to the Supreme Court, except to prevent or end a breakdown in the administration of the Court’s business.” Each of President Eisenhower’s SCOTUS appointments had initially been a recess appointment who was later confirmed by the Senate, and the Democrats were apparently concerned that Ike would try to fill any last-minute vacancy that might arise with a recess appointment. Not surprisingly, the Republicans objected, insisting that the Court should have a full complement of Justices at all times. Of course, the partisan arguments will be exactly the opposite this time.
He cites the same govtrack.us link you did, so I don’t know how it is he can state that the Senate actually passed the resolution. Other than that, it’s clear that the Democrat objection was Eisenhower’s previous recess appointments might be repeated IF a SCOTUS seat went vacant. A key concern obviously also being uncertainty whether Nixon or JFK would win the general election.
I agree that the partisan arguments are exactly opposite this time because partisan arguments tend to change with the weather … not unlike how SCOTUS decisions are shaped by the ideological composition of the Court. Main difference being that justices tend to be more erudite than legislators.
Scalia was no exception. I will miss reading his opinions — there’s a certain pleasure in getting pissed off by inflammatory ideas written in considered, intelligent language. A bit like Wm. F. Buckley, Jr. cranked to 11. Unlike Buckley, I won’t generally miss the results of Scalia’s opinions.
That all said, may rest in peace. My thoughts and sympathies go to his associates, friends and family.

Have been doing a lot of reading on this today. IMO kneejerk reactions like Cruz threat to fillibuster anybody Obama might appoint is foolish and unhelpful.
Waiting til after the election for the next President to make an appointment hurts both political sides on important issues since a number of decisions likely come down 4-4 meaning the appeals court ruling stands. That, for example, means a ‘win’ for public unions concerning mandatory dues from non-members, but also that Obama’s immigration policy is permanently stayed. And assuming a Republican will win the presidency and Repubs will keep the Senate is at least one assumption too many.
Obama has a choice for the sake of the country. He can appoint a known liberal sympathizer knowing yhere is no chance od Senate approval. Or he can pick the best moderate judicial mind, in which case the Senate has the serious responsibility to vet the nominee and vote. There are several that fit the general requirement. Stacking the court one way or the other is harmful to the country.

Do you also believe in the Easter Bunny? “Stacking the Court” assumes some natural balance. Don’t the Founders get a vote?
I haven’t caught up on the CURRENT scorecard of cases that would be impacted by a 4-4 court, but don’t you think that the short term damage, whatever it is, would be overwhelmed by the 30 year damage of another Progressive who thought the law should be not what the founders defined but rather “what is good for the country” (and guess who decides what is good for the country?).
The court needs ONE originalist/textualist. That person will also remind his peers that if those words no longer apply, then CHANGE THEM. There is a legal way to do that and it is called the Amendment Process.
Do you really believe BHO will put forward a compromise candidate? He will nominate a series of Progressives, mostly minorities, and then plead that the dastardly GOP aren’t reasonable.

Breaking news: Justice Scalia is declared to have died of a heart attack. This declaration was made by some local peace judge without even seeing body. No autopsy was performed.
I am not saying that Justice Scalia was murdered by some damned alarmists, but there must be investigation in such possibility! At least, an autopsy must be performed.

I hope the family will demand answers.. This is highly unusual for an unattended death, even the death of a high ranking government official who was not playing nice with the powers in place and checking their over-reach.
We need more information… This does not pass the smell test.

RIP Scalia
A great man passed away. If each of us looks back on our lives, we can often attribute many of the traits that guide us as adults to our formative years. I’ve read all of the responses above. The articulate nature of WUWT is in full bloom concerning this post. I esp enjoyed the discussion concerning Canon law. I’m adding the above to pique thought.
Justice Scalia attended Xavier HS in NYC. It’s not just any HS, but a premier HS that makes leaders out of boys. Scalia was recruited by Xavier. Scalia is well known as one of the best and brightest of its graduates. What is Xavier HS ? Who runs it ? Xavier is a giant in the Jesuit community and like any community it has it’s own internal battles. The Jesuits are sworn defenders of the Papacy. Jesuits are often considered the most worldly Catholic Order and teach and are adept at identifying, implementing and countering propaganda. Notice, I included countering.
Scalia was astutely aware of the influence of the Jesuit community in both Obama’s administration as well as it’s connection to the current Pope. He was also astutely aware of the internal conflict (war) taking place in the Papacy.
Dig into the man’s history. Devour seemingly unrelated stories surrounding his positions. Breath. Read some more. Breath. Go for a walk. A great man was lost. Will Hegelian tendencies gain ground or will the individual free will of man seize the day ?

Extremely suspicious is an understatement. To announce “natural causes”immediately, especially before a Coroner’s report smells like murder to me. How convenient- the only obstacle to dictatorial power conveniently dies, the stalwart defender of the Constitution. Immediate verdict. Sure. Socialists and other totalitarians will stop at NOTHING to cement their power, even murder of political opponents.
Time for Americans to be ready to honour the OBLIGATIONS of the second amendment. It is not just a right to bear arms, it is an obligation for the People to rise up against a rogue government. Do note, the second is there to protect the first. If the first goes, so does freedom. Obama will go after guns immediately, which means the People can not defend themselves against their government, which is very clearly overstepping the mark. How many violations of the Constitution can be tolerated?
As for climate rubbish- the “convenient” death gives Obama the rubber stamp. The rubber stamp extends to the entire nation.

The experiment long ago ended. Now we’re just waiting to see whether any liberty will survive at all, ie whether the state will become an all-powerful totalitarian force supported by perverted technology or merely an authoritarian nanny state.

The court will adjourn in June. Decisions that are split down the middle result in affirmation of the lower court’s decision. However, no precedence is established in such cases, and the court is free to rehear the case at a time of their choosing.
The court’s term ends in June. Meaning, they likely would not decide that many cases between now and June in the first place. I don’t for one minute thing President Obama is inclined to appoint a moderate; given the fact that Sotomayor and Kagan’s decisions have swung as reliably left of center as Scalia’s have to the right of center.

RobR: “The court will adjourn in June. Decisions that are split down the middle result in affirmation of the lower court’s decision. However, no precedence is established in such cases, and the court is free to rehear the case at a time of their choosing.”
Are you sure about the last point? A WaPo article stated that it would have to wait until a new case came along.

“Every generation gets the Constitution that it deserves. As the central preoccupations of an era make their way into the legal system, the Supreme Court eventually weighs in, and nine lawyers in robes become oracles of our national identity.”
– Noah Feldman

It was 0330 the next morning, so that rules out that “suspicious circumstance.” After a brief read of news, the first place to investigate is the U.S. Marshalls who reportedly told the judge there was no need to see the body. No. I do not think that every one of the U.S. Marshalls members is above reproach. There needs to be a forensic examination in the context of a general investigation.

“the first place to investigate is the U.S. Marshalls who reportedly told the judge there was no need to see the body”
See video for an apparent secret service auto protection “stand down” order just prior to Kennedy’s assassination. Also note that the last two shots were very close together and the exploding nature of the injury providing further evidence that the kill shot was a frag round from the SS AR-15 that they had in the trailing vehicle (see book Mortal Error). So, you are right, who really knows just who is real control and at what levels:

Presidio County Judge Cinderella Guevara pronounced Justice Scalia dead of natural causes without seeing the body and decided not to order an autopsy, according to Washington Post. Presidio County is heavily Democratic; in 2012 elections, Obama received 71% of the county’s vote. The death happened at the Cibolo Creek Ranch, less than an hour from the Mexican border, allowing murderers (if there was a murder) easy entrance and escape.
Is anybody going to insist on the autopsy and investigation?

Come on Janice,
You are always a voice of reason on this blog; why resort to unsubstantiated conspiracy theories? The man was a year short of 80 and at least 70lbs overweight. He also admits to a fondness for Italian food and held a position that required prolonged periods of sitting. Given those conditions, he did well to make it to 79.
The more likely scenario is he over-taxed himself while out hunting and his heart suffered a blockage when he returned to the camp.

“he did well to make it to 79”
Yes and a natural death is NOT unbelievable or out of question, and nobody here is was.STILL asking hard and unpleasant questions is extremely reasonable.
Is the murder of Anna Politkovskaya “suspect”? She was an extremely minor (in term of influence) critic of Putin (and also a critic of Islamic extremists). But the whole “free world” press accused Putin (and not the Islamic extremists, for some reason).
You don’t get libeled for question the official Russian thesis on the murder of Anna Politkovskaya. You can say it’s probably Putin, with zero evidence, and get away with it. It’s even seen as common sense.
The murder of other minor opponents of Putin can also be reasonably explained.
Anyway, Putin IS popular. Just ask real typical Russian people. Russians just love a strong leader. The Occident-centrist political analysts must deal with this.
But the consensualist free press is all over these conspiracies theories.
And when it comes to the death of one of the most powerful person in the US, we wouldn’t be allowed to ask questions?
Don’t tell the libelers/”conspiracy theorist” labelers have their way. (They believe in many pet theories based on little or no evidence.)

Dear Rob R,
Thanks, Rob. Here’s a rational conclusion: given the strong motive of Scalia’s political enemies, an investigation into Justice Scalia’s death is only logical. I have not concluded anything. I, as a reasonable person, have questions that I would like answered.
To assume all is well is to ignore the context of the death.
Okay?
Janice

P.S. Lol, your point about his age and weight and job stress are valid. However…. just look around you at all the overweight Italian food eaters who are in their late 80’s. Good evidence, but, not enough to make an investigation pointless.

Judge Cinderela Guevara retracts prior statement:http://news.yahoo.com/u-supreme-court-justice-scalia-died-heart-attack-185350539.html
MARFA, Texas (Reuters) – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s cause of death will not be officially determined for several days, the top official in the Texas county where Scalia died during a hunting trip said on Sunday.
Presidio County Judge Cinderela Guevara said in an interview that she had misspoken when she told local television station WFAA-TV that Scalia’s death certificate would list the cause of death as a heart attack.

Here in the Bay Area those caring compassionate liberals are cheering and celebrating the death of Justice Scalia.
It really is one of the most appalling spectacles I have ever had the misfortune to witness. Profoundly disgusting.
We need to change the name of our country because there’s nothing United about it 🙁

Marcus
Just that it was an early attempt to gain control of the court so as to stop it for declaring laws unconstitutional.
It was a power grab and congress which had voted in the new deal laws saw it as that.
Oh and a President can’t send a bill to congress he has to get some one in congress to propose it
michael

I told everyone a while ago that the big play for Obama to remain as President past his term would be for Hillary to win the nomination, for Obama to prosecute her just weeks before the election, then ask the Supreme Court to delay the Presidential election until the Democrats successfully nominate someone else, all in the name of “fairness”. He would hope the new Congress would be controlled by the Democrats who would allow this delay. The only obstacle in his way was the make up of the Supreme Court which is now in doubt. If yuo do not own a rifle (the hell with handguns) it is time to get on NOW.

Democrats in Senate passed a resolution in1960 against election year Supreme Court appointments
Read it and weep, Democrats. The shoe is on the other foot. David Bernstein at the Washington Post’s Volokh Conspiracy blog:
Thanks to a VC commenter, I discovered that in August 1960, the Democrat-controlled Senate passed a resolution, S.RES. 334, “Expressing the sense of the Senate that the president should not make recess appointments to the Supreme Court, except to prevent or end a breakdown in the administration of the Court’s business.” Each of President Eisenhower’s SCOTUS appointments had initially been a recess appointment who was later confirmed by the Senate, and the Democrats were apparently concerned that Ike would try to fill any last-minute vacancy that might arise with a recess appointment.http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/02/dems_in_senate_passed_a_resolution_in1960_against_election_year_supreme_court_appointments.htmlhttps://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/86-1960/s415

Paul, really good stuff in this thread, you know the faith much better than I do. As for our current Holy Father, Francis is a pope that is humble as regards his personal life but, in my opinion, incredibly arrogant as regards his office. I’d much prefer that was reversed (though it would be best if he was humble in both). The Church typically takes it’s time – sometimes hundreds of years – to officially proclaim dogma that has been believed since the beginning. Francis has no issue hastily putting pathetic, junk science in a papal encyclical, and then flapping his gums about it.
Francis need to do his job of promoting historical Christianity, and not promoting false secular modern religions, which is exactly what CAGW is.
The real painful thing is – CAGW is everything the Church is against. It’s root go back to at least the mid-1960s population bomb movement (if not before, in the various eugenics movements) , and it is firmly rooted in the culture of death. As has been mentioned here by others, it hurts the world’s poor the most. Why Francis is somehow blinded by this, I don’t know. We need to pray for him.
God will prevent Francis from making serious errors w/r/t Christian dogma, but if he wants to make himself a useful idiot of the CAGW movement, he’s on his own. The Church will get past this, but it’s a very sad state of affairs when the pope throws his lot in with a bunch of misanthropes.

I think Jorge Mario Bergoglio is a product of his upbringing. I believe that he grew up learning to be hostile to the USA and listening to colloquial criticism of capitalism which he integrated into his thinking. I believe that he is not a very good scientific thinker, nor should he be necessarily. I also believe that he imperfectly good. I read both of his encyclicals several times and since they are not excathedra, his writing cannot be deemed infallible by the CC. Good because he was wrong about CO2 being a poison and trickle-down economics.
CO2 is, essential for all life and is definitely not a poison.
So, Catholics will have to learn to listen guardedly to this Pope since he often forays into subject matter not related to faith and morals. That is what Scalia has done I believe. Scalia knew where to draw the dotted line.

I don’t know whether it is relevant to the present context or not, I would like to bring to the notice of international forums related to judiciary in India. Like in the case of global warming in US there is so much activism on scientific issues — free discussion — but in India, educated group rarely enter the arena on scientific issues except vested interest activist groups with their one sided arguments, like warmist groups, blindly defend their view point, here no science involved. I raised the issue of science versus judiciary in resolving inter-state river water disputes. I tried to put this before the judiciary at the highest level and as well government level and different forums. No response. Even the forums were not interested to discuss on this. Finally I put this in a book form “Irrigation and Irrigation Projects in India: Tribunals, Disputes and Water Wars Perspective” published by BSPublications, 2016, 154p.
Late Justice Antonin Scalia of US Supreme Court, while dealing with a case in 2006, clearly differentiated between environment and atmosphere and accordingly the judgment followed but in the case of Tribunal with unfettered powers bulldozed the technical issues presented judgment through technical fraud in favour of a particular state at the cost of other state. Even when this was brought to the highest court Chief Justice and the President and Prime Minister of India, there was no response.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”
Though the judiciary is one of the four pillars of the Indian Constitution, it has become no different from other three pillars with reference to corruption. The 2014 reports in media high lights how Indian judiciary is functioning starting with their recruitment. Here the major issue is even after retirement they enjoy power. In fact, I think, this issue started with my letter to the Chief Justice of India with a copy to the Prime Minister of India on 11th February 2013. In this I raised three issues namely “not before me” [A layer can say I don’t argue before you then the case will be transferred to another bench; through this the case will go to a favoured bench], “quid pro co” [here there is no need to have a proof but they try to derive the issue indirectly to punish rivals] and “recruitment – collegiums system”. Under collegiums system, judges recruit judges and with this most inefficient person become judges [by paying bribe or by serving political or business interests]. Former two are illogical and are used to manipulate justice. In the state of Andhra Pradesh in India, to destroy the political rivals or to protect the criminals/corrupt politicians these two clauses were/are used invariably. The misuses of these two clauses are more hazardous than corruption.
Justice is rarely achieved with such a system. Unfortunately in the recruitment of judges there is no independent body like Union Public Service Commission [UPSC] and thus lacking integrity. Majority of the judges belong to particular industrial/business/political groups as they are behind their appointments/recruitments. My letter was forwarded to the law ministry and law ministry organized a meeting with Chief Ministers of States, High Courts & Supreme Court judges along with Prime Minister. Chief Ministers favoured UPSC but judges disagreed. However, government brought out National Judicial Appointment Commission [NJAC] Act, 2014 in place of existing collegiums system of recruitment and this was notified on April 15, 2015. Judges fought against this order in Supreme Court on this for their power but when I submitted to three successive Chief Justices of the Supreme Court on fraudulent act of tribunal of Krishna Water sharing, they did not even cared to acknowledge it.
A judgment of the Supreme Court [the Highest] is dumped in to dust bin by a High Court [state level]. This relates to two drinking water reservoirs in Hyderabad/India built before 1930s. To protect them government brought out government orders in 1989, 1994 & 1996 and later the Supreme Court order in 2000. None of these stopped the individuals and as well governments to violate these. The Supreme Court in its judgment used the word “Precautionary Principle” but yet violations indiscriminately. When environmental groups [including myself] approach the High Court in one case dismissed as the bench was headed by a judge of ruling party. In my petition though the court directed the government and government submitted undertaking, nothing stopped the violators.
Unless educated people come out openly raised the issue, judiciary play with the lives of billions all around the world. If the US government appoints favoured person in the Supreme Court bench the the results will be reversed. We call that as science.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy

Gloateus Maximus
February 14, 2016 at 2:28 pm
In defense of Italian food, the Mediterranean diet can be very healthy, given enough garlic and red wine to counteract the pasta, provolone, parmesan and prosciutto.
Dietary advice has about as much actual real evidence behind some of the advice such as the “Mediterranean Diet or the “Food Pyramid” as does most climate science.
See here:http://www.market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=231117

I don’t think anyone here is seriously offering that there was a “conspir@cy” to murder Scalia.
However.
When someone with such power passes away in an unexpected fashion, and unattended, it would seem that an autopsy would be indicated. It should be done as a matter of record, because it’s the right thing to do. It would accomplish at least three things:
1) It would discourage, to some extent foul play, because if an autopsy was guaranteed there would be an increased chance of discovering foul play. If this saved a future life, this reason alone would be enough.
2) It would defuse arguments about whether or not it should be done, and the questioning of political motives of those on either side of the argument.
3) It would defuse future arguments about it. After all – foul play was ruled out during the routine autopsy.

Also late to this party so only scanned the various diatribes –
It seems the big ‘take home’ on the issue is that the Supreme Court actually issued its ruling that the lower court MUST issue a stay against the EPA until the intricacies of the EPA rules are finally adjudicated. That part is a done deal regardless of any future Supreme court tie votes or 5-4 decisions the other way. [I suppose Chief Justice Roberts might weasel a way to change that if he really was ‘encouraged’ enough to try].
The result is that in the TIME it takes for the case (and the various appeals and permutations) to make its way through the courts the November elections will have taken place. Since one of the first things a lawyer learns in law school is how to stretch cases out to make as much money as possible it should be very easy to find law firms eager to create as much delay as possible – and be successful! This works strongly to the advantage of those who can use the time to create a new political environment within the EPA ie elect a President who shares those values.
There is HOPE after all.

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